Sunday, November 22, 2015

It
is “barbing salon,” “barbing saloon” or none of the two? Is the expression “next
tomorrow” Standard English? What of the expression “An ABU graduate is ahead of
you naturally”? Is it grammatically correct? For answers to these and other
usage questions, read on.

Question:

Is
it “barbing saloon” or “barbing salon”?Which one is correct and why?

Answer:

Neither
of the two is correct. The conventional expression among native English
speakers is “barbershop” or “barber shop” or simply “barber’s,” as in, “I went
to the barber’s to get a haircut.” “Barbing
salon” or “barbing saloon” are peculiarly Nigerian English expressions that no
one outside Nigeria understands.

Two
years ago, a recently arrived Nigerian immigrant in America by the name of Deji
asked
on a website where he could get a “good barbing salon.” “Does anyone know
where i can get a good barbing salon?” he wrote. “I am a black guy and would
like the best place around.” The responses were hilarious. “What the hell is a
barbing salon?” someone asked. To which the Nigerian responded: “Well, you know
what a Salon is if you haven't had [sic] about barbing right? It's Simple!!”
Well, it’s not that simple, as another poster pointed out: “I do not think that
word means what you think it means.”

Yes,
“barbing salon” doesn’t mean a place where you get a haircut. In fact, as I
will show shortly, it really doesn’t mean anything in Standard English. So when
you are outside Nigeria don’t ever tell anyone you are looking for a “barbing
salon” or, worse, “barbing saloon.” You won’t be understood, and here is why.

In
Standard English, the verb “barbing” is never used in relation to the act of
cutting the hair. “Barbing” means to provide with barbed wires, as the gates
and fences of many homes in Nigerian urban areas usually are. In other words, “barb”
doesn’t mean to have a haircut; it means to fit with barbed wires, as in “I
barbed my house to prevent thieves from climbing over my fence.”

The
verb used for cutting hair is “barber,” as in, “he barbers for a living.”

You
are probably more concerned about the difference between a “saloon” and a “salon.”
Well, a saloon is a place where alcoholic drinks are sold and served, what Nigerians
call a “beer parlour.” Saloon is also the name of a kind of car. As you can
see, combining “barbing” and “saloon” in the same sentence is one of the most
meaningless expressions anyone can ever make in the English language.

A
salon, on the other hand, is a place where women make their hair, do their
nails, wax their bodies, etc. It’s also called a beauty shop, a beauty salon, or
a beauty parlor. Of course, “salon” has other meanings, such as a place where
works of art are displayed, a large sitting room for guests, etc., but it is
most commonly used to refer to a place where hairdressers and beauticians work.

If
you say “barbing salon” in any country where English is a native language, you might
be understood to mean “a barbed salon,” that is, a salon that is fitted with
barbed wires. That would be hard to even conceive of because salons are some of
the safest places in the West; they don’t need barbed wires to protect them
from criminals. So “barbing salon” is also a meaningless expression in Standard
English.

Note
that although salons cater mostly to women’s beauty needs, some of them also
double as places where men can have a haircut. That doesn’t mean, of course,
that you can call such places a “barber salon.” That would sound ridiculous.

In
sum, it’s OK to say “barbing salon” in Nigeria because that’s what everybody
else says, but be careful not to say that outside Nigeria if you want to be
understood. Say “barber shop” instead.

Question:

Recently,
Adamawa State Governor Bindo Umaru Jibrilla said “next tomorrow” during a
speech when President Buhari visited Yola. Is that Standard English?

Answer:

No,
it is not. “Next tomorrow” is a uniquely Nigerian English expression. The usual
expression in other English-speaking countries is “the day after tomorrow.”

Question:

"An
ABU graduate is ahead of you naturally." What is wrong with this
statement? Someone said the word "naturally" renders it less
meaningful.

Answer:

There
is nothing wrong with the statement as far as I can tell. I think the person
who told you the appearance of “naturally” renders the statement meaningless
has a limited understanding of the range of meanings “naturally” encapsulates.
“Naturally” can mean “of course” or “as might be expected,” and this meaning fits
well with the intent of the quoted statement. “Naturally” doesn’t only mean
“according to nature.”

But as a graduate of Bayero University Kano, I
would recast that sentence to “A BUK graduate is ahead of you naturally”!
Seriously, though, it is a creative, punny bumper-sticker slogan that both
implies that the car whose sticker you’re reading is ahead of you of course
(that is, “naturally,” or “goes without saying” because you have to be behind
the car to read the sticker) and that its owner is an ABU or BUK or UI, etc.
graduate. “Ahead” here can be understood both literally (that is, his car has
sped past you) and figuratively, that is, the quality of his or her education
is worth more than yours. It’s just cheeky, good-natured humor.

Question:

I
have a question about the usage of a particular expression. Which is the
correct expression between “12 noon” and “12 p.m.”? And is there any rule
binding its the usage? I am a graduate of linguistics and it has caused argument
between my friends and me because I chose 12 noon.

Answer:

Both
“12 noon” and “12 p.m.” are grammatically defensible, but saying or writing “12
noon” is preferred to “12 p.m.” because it helps to avoid confusion. That is
why many style guides discourage the use of 12 p.m.

Technically,
12 p.m. can be understood to mean either the middle of the day or the middle of
the night. If, for instance, you stay up at night until 11:59 p.m. and you get
a call from your friend a minute later, would you say the call came at “12
p.m.” since it’s just a minute away from 11: 59 p.m.? Some people might say
“well, that’s 12 a.m.” OK, how about if the call came a minute after 11: 59
a.m.? How can one defend insisting that 12 hours separate 11:59 a.m. from 12
a.m. even though they are both “a.m.”?

It’s
in a bid to avoid this semantic confusion that style guides advise that we use
“12 noon” or “12 midday,” instead of “12 p.m.,” for the 12 that comes in the
middle of the day and “12 midnight,” instead of “12 a.m.,” for the 12 that
comes at night.

Avoid
the tautological “12 a.m. in the morning” or “12 p.m. at night” at least in
writing.

Question:

I
want to know the meaning of these terms: kindergarten, daycare, and nursery in
relation to school. Is it true that lecturers are regarded as professors in
America?

Answer:

In
America, a daycare is a place where working parents take their children who
between the ages of 1 and 3. At age 4, children attend what is called
pre-kindergarten, usually called “Pre-K.” At age 5, they attend kindergarten.

“Nursery
school” is a chiefly British English term for what American English speakers
recognize as pre-K and kindergarten. Note that the British “nursery school” and
the American pre-K and kindergarten are collectively called “preschool” in both
British and American English. Children who go to preschool are called
preschoolers.

To
your second question, yes, it’s true that in American English anybody who
teaches in a university is called a professor. “Professor” is used in the same
generic sense that “lecturer” is used in British and Nigerian English. For
instance, where a British or Nigerian English speaker would say “I have great
lecturers in my university,” an American English speaker would say “I have
great professors in my university.” I have written several articles on this.
Search the archives on this blog.

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About Me

Dr. Farooq Kperogi is a professor, journalist, newspaper columnist, author, and blogger based in Greater Atlanta, USA. He received his Ph.D. in communication from Georgia State University's Department of Communication where he taught journalism for 5 years and won the top Ph.D. student prize called the "Outstanding Academic Achievement in Graduate Studies Award." He earned his Master of Science degree in communication (with a minor in English) from the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and won the Outstanding Master's Student in Communication Award.

He earned his B.A. in Mass Communication (with minors in English and Political Science) from Bayero University, Kano, Nigeria, where he won the Nigerian Television Authority Prize for the Best Graduating Student.

Dr. Kperogi worked as a reporter and news editor, as a researcher/speech writer at the (Nigerian) President's office, and as a journalism lecturer at Kaduna Polytechnic and Ahmadu Bello University before relocating to the United States.

He was the Managing Editor of the Atlanta Review of Journalism History, a refereed academic journal. He was also Associate Director of Research at Georgia State University's Center for International Media Education (CIME).

He is currently an Associate Professor of Journalism and Emerging Media at the School of Communication and Media, Kennesaw State University, Georgia's fastest-growing and third largest university. (Kennesaw is a suburb of Atlanta). He also writes two weekly newspaper columns: "Notes From Atlanta" in the Abuja-based DailyTrust on Saturday (formerly Weekly Trust) and "Politics of Grammar" in the DailyTrust on Sunday (formerly Sunday Trust).

In April 2014 Dr. Kperogi was honored as the Outstanding Alumnus of the University of Louisiana's Department of Communication. His research has also won international awards, such as the 2016 Top-Rated Research Paper Award at the 17th Symposium on Online Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin, USA.